As discussed in my last post, I am back with the post on my India trip with each and every detail of my travel.
As usual, before the journey I can never get full night sleep due to last minute packing, lots of excitement, and a lot of other things. With the excitement of going to India (let's just call it excitement), woke up early at 6 am and helped my mom make the sandwiches to take with us. Everyone got ready by 8 am, checked everything one last time and headed for airport around 8:20 am. My friend got us to the airport in half an hour which was pretty fast compared to the time it takes us to get to the airport. There was quite a bit of line for check-in but it was moving at steady speed. This time, we were only allowed to check-in 1 bag per person, so the situation at the airport wasn't so bad with 4 check-in bags & 4 carry-on bags. Every time we have traveled to India, the situation becomes a bit awkward when we have to drag all the check-in bags, and carry-on bags to the counter since there are always 6 or more check-in bags plus 3 or more carry-on bags plus ladies purses and laptop bag and/or backpack. People at the airport glare at us as if we are going on a journey to never return back!! Anyways, we got our turn in line within 10 minutes, and we pulled our bags to the counter and checked-in. We got our baggage tags, and boarding passes. Again, check-in wasn't bad either, maybe 10-15 minutes. We headed for the security check. Security checking lines seemed long but they always move faster and I have never had to wait for more than 15 minutes. We got to our gate @ around 10:20 am and then we had all the time to sit and relax and observe the airport crowd going and coming....haha.
United Airlines from Denver to Washington Dulles: Our first leg of the journey was on United Airlines from Denver to Washington Dulles. The flight was to depart at 11:24 am, but since the plane came late we boarded around 11:35 am and didn't take off until 12:10 pm. The flight itself was fine. I think in-between my sleep I saw the movie Alex Cross which they were showing on board. No comments on that! We got to the Washington Dulles airport at around 5 pm and it took us about 15-20 minutes to get out since we were sitting all the way in the back. Since our next flight was not until 6:40 pm, we were not in hurry. We got off at one of the Concourse C gates and our next flight was also going from the same terminal which was a relief to not change terminals. This is the 3rd time I am connecting to another flight via Washington Dulles and every time it's been from either from concourse C or D and both of them are on the same terminal. This is one terminal I have encountered which is always busy, there is no open space, very little set of windows that makes it very dark at places, and always crowded. But, what can I do? I have no choice!!
United Airlines from Washington Dulles to Dubai (13 hours flight!!): Our second leg of the journey was from Washington Dulles airport to Dubai on United Airlines which was going to be the longest flight - 13 hours long!!! Yup!! This was first time for us to be on a long flight with United Airlines, so didn't know what to expect in terms of food, entertainment, comfort of seats, etc. We boarded the plane and were not disappointed!!
The seats were comfortable, and there was enough leg room. Entertainment wise, they had good selection of Hollywood movies like Argo, Taken 2, Prime Rush, etc., but very limited selection of Bollywood movies. Only 5 movies which included Rowdy Rathore, Shanghai, Student of the Year, English Vinglish, & Monsoon Wedding. Last time, I remember, I had watched so many movies on my Qatar flight but this time I didn't feel like watching anything. I think I slept through most of my flight and only woke up when the air hostess came with the meal. Now, about the food, the important part of the long flight!! UA was providing dinner and breakfast. We had requested Veg. Asian Meal and I wasn't sure what to expect but it sure didn't disappoint us. They served dinner just after an hour the flight had taken off and it included Mix Vegetable & Dal with Rice, salad with yogurt and vinegar. It was tasty but not enough. Also for breakfast, which was served 1 and half hours before the flight landed, they served 2 coconut bhajiya, 3 puris, and a paneer vegetable along with yogurt, one small (really small) bread, and cream cheese. Honestly, when they served breakfast, I was fast asleep and didn't want to wake up but whatever they were serving smelled good, so forced myself to open one eye and respond to the air hostess who was asking me if I wanted breakfast!! I wasn't really hungry but wanted to try out the coconut bhajiya which I have never tried before and they sure were delicious! Along with the dinner & breakfast, United Airlines have snacks in the back where people can go and grab them as needed. They had veg. and non-veg. sandwiches made and packets of chips and candy already made.
This flight to Dubai had a lot of Indians traveling, especially a lot of Gujaratis which made it interesting because we got to hear other people speak in Gujarati instead of us :).
Apparently, our flight reached Dubai 1 hour before its assigned time. What it meant for us? Well, an additional hour meant that instead of 5 hours wait at Dubai, we were now going to have a 6 hours wait :(...that's really long time!!!
I am going to stop right here and continue the journey in the next post to make sure you are not fast asleep after reading this one!! Upcoming is the experience at the Dubai airport .....
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